ENGL 308, Fall 2008; Gary Lee Stonum, ,368-3342, Office Hours: 315 Guilford, TBA

Updated july 15, version 1.0

ENGL 308, fall 2008; Gary Lee Stonum, ,368-3342, Office hours: 315 Guilford, TBA

English 308: Departmental Seminar

(the course formerly known and sometimes still serving as Senior Seminar):

Modern American Fiction, Mid-twentieth Century

Course overview and aims

We will study some majorAmerican novelists and story writers flourishing in the half decade after the Jazz Age. These are writerswho drew upon and consolidated the practices of the first modernists (Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Joyce, James, and Conrad, among anglophones; Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Nietzsche, Cezanne, and Duchamp otherwise) and who largely remade modernism as an American brand. Despite various postmodernist or non-modernist ventures in more recent years, the work of this generation of writers continues to loom largein world literature and to help define what counts as “major.”

Apart from the content, which might be examined in various courses and at various levels, the course also serves two functions in the larger Case B.A. scheme. If it satisfies your General Education Requirement for a departmental seminar (and hence helps make you eligible for later doing an English capstone), then you are in the larger group and are expected to learn or improve research skills that will prepare you for the capstone. But you don’t yet need to provide a senior thesis or mini-thesis

If you are among the smaller group, mostly those entering when SAGES was a pilot program or otherwise you declared your English major in those days, the course can satisfy your capstone requirement, as what used to be the Senior Seminar.

The two groups will all do the same common reading but may selectsomewhat different writing assignments.

Texts

[Commercial interlude: If you purchase your books (or anything else Amazon sells) by starting from the site’s link to amazon.com), a slice of the proceeds goes to support English Department activities now and in the future. I.e. it goes directly back to you via more writers and speakers visiting campus and for subsidizing the annual awards banquet and other social events.] However you acquire the books, please use these editions.

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms(1929). Scribner’s, isbn 978-0684801469

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (1929). Norton Critical Edition, second edition, isbn 0-393-96481-7

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Harper, isbn 0-06-091650-8

Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts, (1933) and The Day of the Locusts (1939). New Directions, isbn 0-8112-0215-1

William Faulkner, Go Down, Moses (1942). Vintage, isbn 0-679-73217-9

Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955). Harvest, 978-0156364652

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962). Vintage, isbn 0-679-72342-0

Course procedures

Active reading: first and foremost, you should carefully read the assigned texts and come to class prepared to discuss them. A little prep ahead of time, of the sort that Wikipedia or author-oriented web sites provide, wouldn’t hurt;. For the writers we are reading the reliability index from such sources is higher than usual, especially for biographical and bibliographic info.

More important than such prep is a good job of underlining or annotating or otherwise marking your texts about matters you find revealing, interesting, or puzzling. <begin rant> Every diligent student does this somewhat differently but every diligent student does it in one way or another <end of rant>. At some point in the first class on each of our books, you will be invited to raise questions that have arisen from your reading, whether of the factual and footnote sort or broader thematic and esthetic issues. You might also have already contributed a posting to our Blackboard site that will similarly help set our agenda for discussing the book

Seminar procedures: Typically the first class on each book will include some lecturing by the instructor on contexts for the book. That, along with questions and issues raised in class or on Blackboard, will determine our agenda for the seminar discussions then and in subsequent days.

The next sessions on the text will follow out the initial agenda or diverge from it as we come across more promising avenues.

Afterwards: As we move on to studying different texts, discussion of earlier stuff can—one hopes, will—continue on Blackboard, and of course connecting current reading to earlier stuff is always useful in discussion. Or, for that matter, connecting it to stuff outside our syllabus. In addition, you will be selecting a text to concentrate on for your main writing projects and thus may have things to contribute that come from your reading for the projects.

Backward glances, aka Once more, with feeling: Near the end of the semester, we will spend one session reviewing each of the main writers. Those of you working on that writer will be asked to lead the discussions, especially by summarizing and contextualizing the research you have done. Ideally, you will also have circulated a first draft of the final paper

At the same time, you will get feedback on drafts of the final paper. Scheduling details to be announced later. Likewise, those doing capstone papers will have workshop sessions on drafts after classes end.

The last week of the semester will be devoted to Pale Fire, the novel that more than any other stands on the cusp between modernist and postmodernist American literature and may thus help frame what we have been doing.

Writing assignments

1. Blackboard posts: each student should provide a minimum of four contributions—new topics, responses to stuff in class, responses to previous posts--to our Blackboard site, at least three before fall break and at least one afterwards. Responses to the readings that can help orient our discussion are especially welcome, but except in extreme cases (really wonderful stuff or truly perfunctory ones barely fulfilling the requirement) the length, depth, and breadth are up to you. I.e. you will be graded on whether you contribute, not on what, and the zero degree is that everyone’s thoughts are A worthy.

2. Bibliographical essay: Selecting from among our main texts the one on which you will concentrate, read up on the secondary literature and then write a paper summarizing the critical commentary; noting important biographical and cultural issues therein; identifying the main archives for doing primary research in manuscripts, letters, etc.; and noting any textual/editorial issues or problems. On the last, let Charles Kinbote be your guide. Essays should be in the 4-8 page range of text and should also include a detailed listing of secondary literature. That listing may well be longer than the essay.

3. Final paper: Depending on your druthers or your need to produce a capstone paper, write a 15-25 page paper on your primary text of either sort:

a) an introduction to a new edition of this book, intended for the educated reader not previously familiar with it. Incorporate and put in context all the research you have done—commentary, biography, impact and cultural context, textual matters—and be sure to tell your readers what to notice or enjoy or gain from the book.

Or

b) a more narrowly scholarly paper on some aspect of the book, ideally making a contribution to our understanding of it or putting that understanding in some valuable context. This alternative is largely obligatory for those using the assignment as a capstone project. It is not different, except perhaps in scale, than seminar papers you would have done in other courses.

Different main text?

If you would like to work on some other writer and/or some other text and can a) provide a good reason for doing so or b) offer a sufficiently large and untraceable bribe, let the instructor know by September 9. Be aware that this may oblige you to do a different, more elaborate sort of presentation during our “Backward glances” time. And that you will otherwise follow the same rubric as those doing the main texts. Depending on choices, time will be set aside for backwardly glancing at such works we haven’t all yet forwardly glimpsed.

Workshops

One way or another, everyone in the class will get workshop feedback on the final paper and will provide feedback to at least one other student’s work. Scheduling of this to be done at mid-semester (and if he forgets, someone remind your instructor about the need to get such matters organized).

Grading and other policies

Blackboard postings and seminar contribution: 25% (usually 15/10 between Blackboard and classroom, but the instructor reserves the right to reward and punish).

Bibliographic essay: 25%

Final paper: 50%

If by now you are unclear about or unconvinced by the university’s policy on academic integrity and especially on plagiarism, please consider withdrawing from the course. Violations of the policy will result in failure for the course and institution of disciplinary proceedings

Not only is this college, this is a seminar: attendance is required for each and every session. That said, if there is some good reason to miss a class, notify the instructor by email as long before or as soon after as is possible.

As part of their capstone requirement, several students in the class will need to present their work in a public forum. We will set this up later on, but everyone should plan to attend a festive event for this at the end of the semester. On the instructor’s tab, natch.